Oscar worthy ‘Avatar’ the most imaginative movie of the year
By Michael Huckaby
Excerpt: hcnonline.com
December 24, 2009 - “Avatar” is the most expensive movie ever made. A fantasy coming in at more than $300 million, master moviemaker James Cameron (“Titanic”) has created the most imaginative – some say the best — movie of the year. Splendid entertainment in either conventional 2D or subtle 3D (at a premium price), Cameron’s screenplay is gripping and drips emotional resonance.
Whether or not audiences usually enjoy fantasy or science fiction, Cameron’s story telling genius allows viewers to embrace a mélange of characters — earthlings and a humanoid race of elegant blue giants. As for the plot and theme, there are subtle parallels to disturbing historical as well as current events, but that could be said for most epic fiction.
But just as the couple comes to love each other and Jake contemplates changing sides, Neytiri discovers his treachery and is devastated. However, Jake finds an unusual way to regain her trust. Though with technical flaws and too lengthy for some tastes, the battle that follows employs the latest generation of special effects with action as realistic as any that has come before.
A careful blend of superb conventional and CGI photography, this 20th Century Fox production has surpassed Disney and other studios in bringing realism to the eyes and bodies of created characters. “Avatar” is worthy of several Oscar nominations. Click on the source link for the complete review.
Avatar a wonderful ride through an alien world
By Mona Mattei
Excerpt: boundarysentinel.com
December 22, 2009 - Being privileged enough in a small town to see the new film Avatar on its opening weekend at our hometown theatre, the Gem, I couldn’t resist writing a review of this amazing film.
What is most impressive is the use of new technology that allows director James Cameron to seamlessly move from real-life filming to animation. While the Gem didn’t have the 3D equipment for viewing the film in the intended format, even the 2D version is a wonder to watch.
Cameron created a whole world in the film – a world with jungles, unusual creatures, and diverse plant and insect species. The only time you feel you might be on a movie lot is in the humans’ zone where they have built a base for their mining production.
While the plot is a typical good vs. evil storyline with romance included, Cameron made the story intriguing, and the world you explore through the eyes of the avatar keeps you fully engaged throughout the two-and-a-half hours.
James obviously modeled the storyline on real-world events. The mining corporation is intent on accessing resources but is being blocked by the indigenous people.
This mimics situations that arise in third world countries today where corporations intent on expanding their bottom line, as the head of the army contingent in the movie says, “if there’s one thing shareholders hate worse than bad press, it’s a bad quarterly report,” try diplomacy to talk indigenous people out of their assets, and then act with force if the diplomacy doesn’t work.
The not so subtle comments by army folk in the movie referring to the indigenous people as “terrorists” and the mission they are about to engage in as a “shock and awe” campaign are jabs that are not missed by most.
But the not to miss part of this film is beyond a doubt the technology. The creation of an entire world that is hard to distinguish as animation is unbelievable.
The only thing better than seeing this film would be to see it in 3D where the plants that light up when you touch them, or the foliage of the jungle would enclose you in a way that you can’t see in 2D.
The Na’vi themselves have humanoid characteristics and they could easily be people in costume the way that the animation is done. Muscles move, eyes show intelligence, and it is easy to believe they are real.
If you are hesitating – go, if only to see the wonderful world Cameron created. The film is an enjoyable ride in another world. Click on the source link for the complete review.
Edmonton Sun Review: 4 out of 5 stars
Avatar a feat of fearless imagination
By Kevin Williamson
Excerpt: edmontonsun.com
December 17, 2009 - Titanic was the tip of the iceberg. Twelve years later, James Cameron’s gonzo science-fiction fever dream, Avatar, ratchets up both the exhilarating effects and soap-opera storytelling that epitomized his Oscar-winning leviathan.
Hardwired for hyperbole, as sensational as it is ridiculous, Avatar is, simply, a feat of fearless imagination and audacity. It’s far from perfect, but it is a delirious, hyper-sensory entertainment nonetheless.
And, opening tonight at midnight, it re-affirms its writer-director’s pole position as an unsurpassed engineer of widescreen romanticism and populist spectacle. From the outset, this otherworldly fantasy hurtles you at download speed through a minimum of exposition.
It’s Tarzan on crack, Bambi on wildlife-growth-hormone. Yet for all the breathtaking scale of the imagery, what elevates Avatar is Cameron’s attention for minutia, his obsession with detail. There’s nothing here quite as epic as when Jake convincingly wriggles his new blue toes.
And for once in a performance-capture film, you can feel the actors encased in the pixels, in every expression, in each flicker of their golden saucer eyes. That’s essential. Without it, it would be impossible to connect emotionally with the CG characters.
And we do. Similarly, Cameron utilizes the 3D (seeing it on a 3D screen is a must) judiciously. It never feels gimmicky. Instead we’re absorbed gradually into Pandora’s environment. Even the most stubbornly jaded should be staggered. Click on the source link for the complete review.
CinemaSpy.com Rates Avatar Review:
4.5 out of 5 Stars
By Kimber Myers
Excerpt: cinemaspy.com
December 13, 2009 - Just like "worth the price of admission," "must-see" is an oft-overused descriptor for critics desperate for shorthand to proclaim a film's value.
But James Cameron's long-gestating project Avatar left me speechless, searching for words to describe the impossible-seeming vision unfolding on the screen and trying to pry my jaw off the popcorn-and-candy-covered floor of the theater. Are "unmissable" and "essential" really any less lazy—or less true?
Not seeing Avatar will not only leave people out of the cultural conversation sure to revolve around water coolers — not to mention around its incredible special effects — but they'll also miss a landmark in moviemaking.
Avatar is a work of striking originality; not in its pedestrian, Pocahontas-like plot, but in its execution. In fact, the simplicity and familiarity of its storyline allow the audience to concentrate solely on the remarkable visuals.
It seamlessly blends live action with CG animation, using WETA's efforts and performance capture to create an entirely believable world. The on-screen technology and biology are breathtaking, particularly the plant and animal life on Pandora.
Trying to describe the well-imagined and well-executed creations seems impossible, and it would take away from the wonder the audience experiences as they see the planet and its inhabitants through Jake's eyes.
What he sees on Pandora is entirely new to him, and it's a similar feeling for us. What we're witnessing has never been done before, at least not this well. Acting may seem like an afterthought in Avatar's special-effects-laden world, but Cameron's cast ably inhabits their characters and environments.
Worthington works a brutish charm that is evident whether he is human or appears in Na'vi skin, and Saldana exhibits both grace and ferociousness as Neytiri. Lang is a mere step away from caricature with his snarling Col. Quartich, but he's an effective villain within Cameron's black-and-white world.
Weaver shows the typical strength we've come to expect from the director's female characters, and Michelle Rodriguez's role as a pilot is a nice addition to his stable, as well. Cameron's Avatar is so much fun that it almost doesn't matter that the dialogue was Lucas-level cheesy.
If you are hoping for witty repartee, go to a Noel Coward play. But for filmgoers that want to be inspired by the future of action cinema, this is just the ticket. Avatar isn't quite as big of a game changer as its filmmakers might like you to believe. But it's not far from it. Click on the source link for the complete review.
AP review: Effects wow but story limps in `Avatar'
By Jake Coyle | Excerpt: yahoo.com
December 11, 2009 - When a film brashly asserts that it will change moviemaking forever, one feels the urge to either take its "king of the world" arrogance down a notch or hail it as the masterpiece it claims to be.
But — and forgive us if this sounds too much like the dialogue in President Obama's war room — what if there's a third option?
James Cameron's 3-D "Avatar" has all the smack of a Film Not To Miss — a movie whose effects are clearly revolutionary. But it nevertheless feels unsatisfying and somehow lacks the pulse of a truly alive film.
"Avatar" is essentially a fairy tale that imagines a more favorable outcome for the oppressed fighting against the technology and might of Western Civilization.
The message of environmentalism and of (literal) tree-hugging resonates, but such a plainly just cause also saps "Avatar" of drama and complexity. It's also a funny message coming from such a swaggering behemoth of technology like "Avatar."
As for the effects, they are undeniable. The movie is also a notable advance for performance capture, which is how the Na'vi were created.
As was done with"The Lord of the Rings" and "King Kong," the Na'vi were made with cameras and sensors recording the movements of the actors and transposing them onto the CGI creatures.
Seldom has this been done in a way that captured the most important thing — the eyes — but Cameron employed a new technology (a camera rigged like a helmet on the actors) to capture their faces up close.
The green, flickering eyes of the Na'vi are a big step forward, but there's still an unmistakable emptiness to a movie so filled with digital creations. Ultimately, the technology of "Avatar" isn't the problem — moviemaking, itself, is an exercise in technology. Click on the source link for the complete review.
BoxOffice.com: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
By Ryan Hamelin
Excerpt: boxoffice.com
December 11, 2009 - If James Cameron's storytelling abilities matched his soaring visual imagination he might have delivered the world a grand masterpiece in the long awaited Avatar.
Instead, this 3D, Sci-fi, action adventure is a pleasure to the eye but jarring to the ear, its hackneyed plot and ridiculous dialogue transform what ought to be awe-inspiring and moving into something often unintentionally funny.
But the pictorial pleasures outweigh the ridiculous. The Sci-fi geeks will turn out and so will the legions of Cameron's fans who have been waiting for a dozen years for his first narrative feature since he became King of the World with 1997's Titanic.
That lack of originality is not fatal, but the clunky dialogue very nearly is. When the characters aren't spouting clichés, they are mouthing words so ridiculous that laughter is the only reasonable response.
The romance between Jake and Neytiri also lacks heat, perhaps because it just seems like the mating between mutant members of the Blue Man Group. Adding to the annoyance factor is James Horner's overblown score and the treacly title song (performed by Leona Lewis), "I See You."
Those are the negatives, and while those might be enough to chase away anyone interested in story and character, the sheer spectacle of the film more than makes up for them.
Cameron has spent much of the years since he made Titanic exploring life deep on the ocean floor and the creatures he has discovered there definitely made an imprint that can be seen in Pandora's fabulous plant and animal life.
Dinosaurs, dogs and horses also figure into the planet's population, but colorfully re-imagined. The combination of special effects, creatures and immersion into a 3D world lend Avatar a kind of grandeur that thrives despite the clunkiness of Cameron's script.
Cameron is reaching for an epic with this movie: it has the sweep, if not the story. That may be enough to make him, if not King of the World once again, at least the master of this holiday season. Click on the source link for the complete review.
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January 7, 2010 - A 13 minute video review of Avatar from The Freedomain Radio. From crippled soldier to ten foot tall painted hippy - one of the greatest transformations in artistic history!
Pandora 2154: Avatar Left Me Glowing In The Dark
By James Holland | Excerpt: basilandspice.com
December 27, 2009 - Like James Cameron’s last epic film Titanic, this is another movie that will keep the audience riveted to their seats and afraid to leave even long enough to go visit the powder room.
Since the science fiction fantasy is 161 minutes and almost three hours in length with the usual theater previews and ads, it’s best to make a bathroom stop on the way in or right after you’ve grabbed your favorite theater seat.
Avatar is packed with fantastic scenes, fantastic action, fantastic creatures, a love story between Jake Scully’s Avatar and a female na’vi “Neytiri” played by Zoe Saldana. Most of the cast was new to this viewer although it was nice to see Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang in their new roles.
The movie is full of cliques. It’s hard to believe that for a human civilization to be so far advanced that they are still trapped in the mindless habits of exploitation of other planets and cultures. There is also one major flaw in the film’s plot that annoyed this reviewer. The “Tree of Voices” is destroyed by bulldozers midway through the film. Later, the main part of the story shifts to “The Tree of Souls” which happens to look exactly like the “The Tree of Voices.”
The film lost me for a while as I tried to figure out why the destroyed sacred tree was back in the movie as if nothing had happened. However, the film’s plot moved quickly forward and I soon didn’t have time for my confusion. It’s a simple plot and although difficult to explain in a review, it’s easy enough to understand in its 3-D movie version. When I left my viewing of Titanic I felt like I was drenched in cold seawater.
When I left Avatar, I felt like I was covered in sparkling, multi-colored fairy dust. I expected to be glowing in the dark as we walked home. Click on the source link for the complete review.
Avatar Reinvents Science-Fiction Moviemaking
James Cameron proves that even 12 years later,
he still has his touch
By Michael Hinman | Excerpt: airlockalpha.com
December 20, 2009 - Since seeing "Avatar" at a midnight showing early Friday, I've been thinking a lot about what James Cameron has contributed to filmmaking.
And not just the technology he's pioneered, but the films themselves. We already know about "Titanic," the biggest box office grosser of all time. But then there's some other amazing films like "The Terminator" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." There's "Aliens" and "The Abyss." And, of course, we can't leave out Cameron's television offering "Dark Angel."
So why I went into "Avatar" with apprehension and fear is beyond me. I walked out believing Cameron has indeed set a new bar when it comes to science-fiction filmmaking, and maybe even filmmaking as a whole. It's something that doesn't happen often. "Star Wars" did it in 1977. Cameron's own "Titanic" did it in 1997. "Gladiator" did it in 2000. Now "Avatar" can be added to the list.
The look of the Na'vi are entirely CGI. In fact, we never see Saldana or other actors who portrayed the native Na'vi like CCH Pounder as Moat and Laz Alonso as Tsu'Tey. Yet, like "District 9" earlier this year, these people look entirely real, and not cartoonish in any way.
Some of this technology really got a boost, sadly, from "Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" in terms of Jar Jar Binks and many of the droids used for the film. However, they still looked slightly cartoonish. However, by the time Peter Jackson went into post-production for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, creating highly realistic CGI characters like Gollum had become possible, and that allowed Cameron to finally begin pre-production on "Avatar."
There has been some story comparisons to a Poul Anderson short from the 1950s entitled "Call Me Joe" that centers on remote control of creatures on the planet Jupiter. In that story, the man controlling a creature also can't walk, but to be honest, that's where the similarities end. Could there have been some inspiration from that to "Avatar?" Sure, but not enough to give Anderson credit, in my opinion as those aspects only go into characterization, and remotely controlling creatures is hardly a new story concept.
What Worked
The real question is what didn't work. Oh wait, we do ask that. The entire idea of "Avatar" is so different from what we typically find in films. So is the way the story is presented, beginning at the arrival at Pandora, but flashing back to key story points to help bring audiences up to speed on what happened through the use of video logs -- one which comes back to bite Sully in the ass later in the story. Although some might say 3-D viewing is simply a nostalgic throwback to the 1950s, it's hard to imagine "Avatar" not in 3-D.
By the time I'm filing this review (a little late, sorry), I've seen this film twice in 3-D, once in IMAX. I have yet to see it on a flat surface, and surely some of my friends who still want me to join them in watching this film will prefer not to wear the 3-D glasses. But there is something about providing a visual texture and depth to this that adds so much to feeling like you're really there, to really help you become involved in the story (not that such a trick is needed). It's almost like using the same psychic bonding that the Na'vi use. And the Na'vi.
Extremely beautiful creatures. I was looking to find a Na'vi that wasn't muscular, chiseled and such in the crowd (at least a fat Na'vi), but couldn't find any, so that was a let down when it comes to realism. But unlike in a previous Weaver film "Galaxy Quest" when one of the human characters fell in love with a squid-like creature, you can see how Sully would be attracted to the very beautiful Neytiri, or really anyone else on the planet. Finally, Weaver should be pointed out for her work on this film.
They say Augustine is actually inspired by Cameron himself, and if that's true, I can see why so many people want to work with this man (and not just because of his genius on film). I had worried that after 12 years, Cameron may not be fully aware how much audiences have changed over that span, but I should know better. Just because he was away doesn't mean he wasn't paying attention, and "Avatar" proves that he not only has a grasp of what's happening right now, but what should happen in the future of the film industry.
What Didn't Work
This is minor stuff, but I thought the base administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) was entirely two-dimensional. His primary role was some comic relief, provide some exposition, and to play an almost mustache-twisting bad guy. It was clear his motivation was money, but it didn't feel like his character was fully fleshed out on screen. Sadly, I think some of that has to go to Quaritch as well.
Although he was played beautifully by Lang and he was far more developed than Selfridge, there never seemed to be a sense of what really motivated Quaritch outside the fact that he was simply a military guy. I'm not sure if that was entirely essential to the story, but Cameron has a habit of giving highly simplistic motivations to bad guys (kill the mother of our resistance leader, get rid of the guy who is making the moves on my girlfriend while riding on this big ship, eat humans, yum!) so that should be expected.
But I know Cameron can grow and change like everyone else, and having deeper motivations to lead those we are rooting against so it looks more real, and less like man in white versus man in black. Finally, one other nitpick. It takes six years to get to Pandora. The people on the base are sending material back, obviously taking six years, and it's not clear how they will be paid. It also seems that a six-year transport is a long time for any material, and the cost of mining and transport alone must be extremely high.
While it was never said what the material was used for, we know it's real expensive (at least we think we do, assuming that inflation hasn't skyrocketed over the next 150 years), but the logistics of such an operation seem a little hard to swallow in a sense of reality. But then again, some might say the same about building huge ships and sending exploratory crews like Kirk and Picard to the stars on yeas-long missions. Click on the source link for the complete review.
Film Review: Avatar
Science-fiction filmmaking takes a gigantic leap forward with James Cameron's rousing action spectacle. Be prepared to see it multiple times on the biggest screen you can find
By Ethan Alter | Excerpt: filmjournal.com
December 16, 2009 - Here's a hypothetical scenario to gauge how you might respond to Avatar, James Cameron's highly anticipated return to filmmaking after over a decade in the wilderness. Picture yourself walking into a second-hand bookstore and heading straight for the science-fiction section.
Lining the shelves in front of you are hundreds of tattered paperbacks from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s bearing titles like The Time of the Hawklords and Cosmic Crusade above evocative illustrations of giant robots, alien landscapes and other such genre touchstones.
Thumbing through the books, your hand stops on a volume with the intriguing name Avatar. On the cover is a picture of a ten-foot tall, blue, cat-like humanoid in warrior garb riding atop a resplendent alien pterodactyl and firing an AK-47 at a large military helicopter filled with human soldiers.
Now, based solely on that image, do you buy the book or not? If the answer is yes, then you'll probably flip for Cameron's film. If you opt to put it back on the shelf...well, there's still lots of stuff here for you to enjoy, but you may not come away as wildly enthusiastic about the experience. Because the dirty little secret of Avatar—which, as we're constantly being reminded, is the most expensive movie ever made—is that Cameron has used all that money and state-of-the-art technology to create the ultimate pulp sci-fi novel, the kind of tale that would have sold for 50 cents four decades ago.
Cameron created this world through a mixture of motion-capture techniques and computer-generated animation, and while the finished product isn't exactly photorealistic like the pre-release hype suggested, it actually achieves something better—a compelling heightened realism. The director has deliberately designed Pandora to superficially resemble Earth, but he then uses the freedom allowed by animation to enhance the planet's landscape and its inhabitants, adding a wealth of details that make it its own distinct entity.
At the same time, he avoids visual flourishes that might render this alien environment too fanciful, too much like a cartoon. As a result, Pandora feels like a living, breathing world and Cameron is its creator and most enthusiastic tour guide. In fact, there are several sections in the movie where the plot stops dead in its tracks to give the audience plenty of time to marvel at the planet he and his teams of digital-effects artists have built from the ground up.
In these moments, Avatar acquires the feel of a Terrence Malick film; Cameron revels in the flora and fauna of Pandora in much the same way that movies like The New World and Days of Heaven rhapsodize unspoiled American landscapes. It's just as well that Cameron takes frequent narrative time-outs during the course of Avatar's 163-minute running time, because, quite frankly, the story he's chosen to tell is serviceable pulp fiction at best.
Like George Lucas, Cameron is one of those writer-directors who would benefit from passing the writing chores off to another party and yet stubbornly continues to pen his screenplays himself. On the whole, the dialogue in Avatar is far less turgid than what moviegoers endured in the Star Wars prequels, but the script still contains its fair share of clunkers. Of course, the case could be made that cheesy dialogue is another important part of the sci-fi pulp tradition.
Besides, subtlety and nuance have never been among Cameron's strengths; whether it’s action, romance or comedy, he can't help but go big and broad. The thing that distinguishes him from other directors of spectacle-driven blockbusters like Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich is that he anchors his epic visions around basic, relatable emotions, which he handles with the utmost sincerity. Avatar, like Titanic before it, may inspire occasional fits of giggling and eye-rolling, but its earnestness is preferable to the soulless machinery of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Click on the source link for the complete review.
FirstShowing.net Avatar Review
'Avatar is Truly Indistinguishable from Magic'
By Brandon Lee Tenney | Excerpt: firstshowing.net
December 13, 2009 - "They don't make movies like this anymore." A friend of mine said that to me before the lights dimmed, before the reason we were all there in that theatre began. After Avatar arrives in theaters, quotes like the one above take on new significance.
No longer can those words be said for the sole sake of irony. Or in jest. They may not make movies like this, like Avatar, often enough, but because of James Cameron — because of the ten or so years he built Avatar with, because of his many, many years of experience he used as its foundation — they do, indeed, make movies like this. And its title is Avatar.
A film whose vision was so grand upon conception, an undertaking so massive, that to wait was the only option. A film that pioneered technology while inventing techniques that will be used by other filmmakers for years to come. A film that was supposed to change the landscape of filmmaking as we know it.
The Technical:
Avatar is unlike anything I've ever seen. And when I say that, make no mistake, I've purposefully left off any qualifier. It's not just unlike anything I've ever seen in theatres or in comic books or in my own imagination; Avatar is unlike anything I've ever seen, period. Technically — and by that, I mean the film's sheer technological accomplishments — it's a marvel. Every second of the hundreds of people's hard work in the motion capture studio or behind a camera or in front of a computer is felt. It's crisp, it's colorful, it's spectacular. The 3D pops unlike any that's come before it.
Cameron uses it to enhance each and every scene in a way that makes it feel irreplaceable (something that will be sorely felt when this movie is only available in two measly dimensions for home viewing). The 3D serves an even greater importance, though. It's used to cement your brain on Pandora, with the Na'vi, in the year 2154; and it's unequivocally successful. Actual particles of dust — they, themselves, CG — float around a totally CG environment in 3D. When you're looking at the screen, you are on Pandora. Every single frame of this film is reality; at least it feels that way.
Every species of plant and animal is so fully realized, each designed and created with purpose, each so believable that they're so easily accepted it's as if I've known of these creatures from text books all my life; it's just that only now I'm laying my own eyes on them for the first time. It's the Na'vi, the blue, ten-feet tall bipedal indigenous race that's the toughest hurdle to clear. The film itself rests upon the audience's ability to not only suspend their disbelief of the Na'vi, but to actively, intellectually and emotionally believe in the Na'vi.
Simply, can you look at that blue face, into those yellow eyes and see a complex, thinking, feeling, loving, dynamic creature and not a bunch of 1s and 0s? Without question — and without hesitation — I could. The motion capture translation from human actor to CG-rendered Na'vi is as close as I've ever seen it come to one-to-one. Those performances are Sam Worthington's and Zoe Saldana's. It is Sigourney Weaver in there, too, as faithfully as if she was only wearing a mask. And there's life in those Na'vi's eyes. It's been said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The Performances:
Avatar's is a cast whose performances are ones you'd never want to cover up or bastardize. Avatar's is a story that demands the output of one hundred percent of its emotion. And Avatar is a film that relies heavily on technology to make sure both of these things happen. That technology: motion capture. Well, technology prevails. These are honest, thoughtful, well played performances in Avatar. During the considerable amount of time the actors are not donning their avatars, their performances are top notch.
Sigourney Weaver, especially, gives an award-worthy portrayal of Grace, lead scientist on Pandora. It helps that her character is written so damned well, but I can't imagine anyone else playing that role. Sam Worthington, when in his human form, is subtle and reserved. He captures a quiet intensity that's necessary to sell his, at times, sinister choices and even more so his insurmountable passion.
Personifying everything wrong with America today (and still in 2154), Giovanni Ribisi plays what is ostensibly Paul Reiser's character in Aliens but does so with enough arrogance and ignorance that no matter how similar he feels — hell, because he's so similar — you hate him and whatever corporation he answers to. And then there's Stephen Lang: the ultimate badass. A no-nonsense colonel who you'd want on your side any day of the week if there's a tussle. Lang takes what is, essentially, a one-note villain and shapes him into a memorable, simply awesome roughneck.
The End:
There's so much to be said about the thoughtfulness of the the design (from the way the human technology looks plausible and functional, worn and broken in, spacecraft that is utterly believable and industrial military vehicles that look like they do what they're meant to and damned well to the computer systems to the ecosystem of Pandora itself, which is incredibly rich and vibrant). There's so much to analyze about the films intents, its themes and messages of peace, of harmony with the environment and of good triumphing over evil.
There's such an intriguing amount to be described about Sam Worthington's character Jake Sully; his movement from lost soul to company man to enlightened individual to Pandora-rattling leader. The sheer power of his mind, able to overcome the shortcomings of his war torn, paralyzed body. And there's so much to delve into about war in general. And of course there's the little things, the moments of awe and enrapturing excitement. As perfect a blend of the technological future of filmmaking with the age-old storytelling techniques of a master storyteller. Click on the source link for the complete review.
ComingSoon.net Rates Avatar 9 out of 10!
By Scott Chitwood | Excerpt: comingsoon.net
December 11, 2009 - Amazing creatures, cool environments, impressive 3-D effects, and awesome action scenes make "Avatar" the must-see movie of the 2009 holiday season. While the story is quite familiar, there's more than enough visual spectacle to make up for it.
What Worked:
First and foremost, the world of Pandora is absolutely amazing. Every plant, animal, and environment is incredibly imaginative. James Cameron takes the familiar and puts a new spin on it to create an incredible, yet entirely realistic feeling world.
It's quite apparent that his deep-sea explorations over the last few years had a huge influence on the world of Pandora. Plants look and act like coral, creatures float through the air like jellyfish, and everything is bioluminescent like deepwater creatures. It's visually stunning and it makes you think what could possibly be out there in space waiting to be discovered on another planet.
A lot of people complain about the overuse of CGI, but this is a case where it is done right. You become so totally immersed in the world that you forget it is all digital. Every drop of water, every blade of grass, every beam of light, and everything on the screen was completely CGI. When you start thinking about the technological feats it took to get all that imagery up on the screen, it absolutely boggles the mind.
Entirely CGI characters are very risky business. They can either fail horribly (Jar Jar Binks) or work perfectly (Gollum). This is a case where they're working perfectly. Despite being 9 ft tall and blue, you quickly forget you're watching a highly detailed cartoon. They capture the facial expressions of the actors and actresses perfectly. This is especially the case with Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. When she's angry or agitated, they exactly capture her performance. They're amazingly expressive. I was also amazed at how much Sigourney Weaver's avatar looked like her. Overall, this is great character animation.
On the live-action side, the cast is excellent across the board. Sam Worthington really gets to shine as Jake Sully. He has the right mix of naiveté, toughness, and cockiness. You believe his transition from a marine obeying orders to a man literally 'gone native.' While Zoe Saldana is entirely CGI as Neytiri, she's no less impressive in her performance as previously mentioned. She's passionate and she manages to deliver the imaginary Na'vi language in a convincing manner. Sigourney Weaver is always a favorite of mine and it's cool to see her here as Grace.
When she's in the lab, she's a tough old broad. But when she's in her avatar in the Pandora environment, she really comes alive. It's a nice touch for her character. The other real standout among the cast is Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch. This guy is someone you don't want to mess with. Cameron goes out of his way to make this guy tough. In one scene he barrels out a door without an oxygen mask just to try and take potshots at escaping prisoners. In another scene he's literally on fire and he doesn't stop what he's doing. Combine him with one of the armored AMP suits and you have someone that could tussle with both the Terminator and the Alien queen combined.
James Cameron is known for his action scenes and he certainly delivers here. We get some great scenes of Jake's avatar being pursued by an attacking panther-like beast. We get some absolutely thrilling scenes of Jake learning to fly his banshee creature. Then when everything hits the fan in the grand finale, we get a spectacular aerial battle between the helicopter gunships and the Na'vi riding the banshees. It's pretty spectacular and any sci-fi fan worth his lightsaber or pointy ears will get goosebumps seeing Jake's avatar in warpaint firing a gun at a spaceship while flying what's essentially a big dragon. This is the kind of stuff geeks live for.
If it's at all possible, see this in 3-D. "Avatar" is a cool movie without it, but this will add the icing on the cake. When Jake and Neytiri climb trees and run across branches hundreds of feet in the air, you get a real sense of height. When Jake walks through the Pandora forest, every leaf, branch, and flying creature pops off the screen. And needless to say the flying battle in the finale looks amazing. You'll thank yourself for going out of your way to see it in 3-D.
What Didn't Work:
As far as what didn't work goes, an easy thing to point at is the overall story. This is, essentially, "Dances with Wolves" set on an alien planet. But you know what? This is a story that has been told many, many times. Look at anything from "A Man Called Horse" to the biblical story of Moses. The story of men identifying with another people and aiding them in a fight for survival is thousands of years old. If you're going to have a familiar story, it's not a bad one to have. The only down side is that it is a bit predictable. If anything, that's what "Avatar" suffers from.
Along those lines, I almost wish I had gone into "Avatar" knowing absolutely nothing in advance. Having seen the trailers and commercials, it took away from some of the wonder of discovering the world of Pandora. The ads not only showed almost all of the environments and creatures, but it laid out the entire plot. Considering how much money Fox has invested in "Avatar," you can't expect them to not show anything, but it did steal some thunder from the film. Click on the source link for the complete review.
December 11, 2009 - Today I saw the future of cinema, and its name is Avatar. The kind of movie that defines not only the time period of its release, but an entire generation of moviegoers. An experience the likes of which I have never had before, with any movie, and I can only theoretically compare to what it must have been like to see the original Star Wars back in 1977.
James Cameron has seized the curtain and thrown it wide, letting the light pour in upon the unsuspecting masses. For the first time, the concept of a 3D movie has a worthwhile reason to exist. The world that Cameron has created here is unparalleled by anything celluloid has presented before, from the dark recesses of the jungle to the blinding cloud cover in the mystical floating mountain ranges.
It’s all beautiful, and completely realistic, despite your brain attempting to process that everything you are seeing was manufactured as a series of zeros and ones. The first few minutes are a bit of an adjustment period, and Cameron knows this, concentrating on grounded and emotional beats that bring the dimensionality of the 3D to an appropriately relevant level. As everything settles down, you feel yourself letting go of your own reality, sliding seamlessly into the universe in front of you.
And what an amazing place Pandora is. From the countless animals to the gorgeous plant life as far as the eye can see, this is a planet which could only exist in the mind of a true visionary. It’s a living and breathing world, and you cannot see where the lines meet. The virtual and the real have become forever blurred through a combination of incredibly detailed art design and a dedication to performance which puts all other “motion-capture” exercises to shame.
The actors are all wonderful. Sam Worthington has officially earned his place as Hollywood’s newest powerhouse lead, and Zoe Saldana is a treat to watch, even if we never see her in the flesh. Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi have an incredible chemistry in their few scenes together, and there is no doubt in my mind that the film could never have worked to begin with were it not for the acting talent on hand.
When so much detail is captured by a computer, it makes the animation team’s jobs undeniably easier, and you can tell from the results that every frame has been lovingly composed to recreate the original actor’s performance. The story works in much the same way, retaining a wholly classic framework with all the necessary narrative beats while rearranging and reorganizing the sequencing of those scenes so as to appear spontaneous and surprising at almost every turn.
You won’t know what will happen next, but as soon as it does happen, it will feel perfectly right on every level and you’ll wonder how else anyone would have thought of writing it. The script is that good. After almost a decade in development, we’d rather hope it would be. Avatar is the real deal, the kind of epic advancement in filmmaking that only happens when an amazing creative team is paired with an equally talented and driven group of researchers and technicians who work around the clock to bring the dream to life.
As Cameron is fond of saying “we pushed the envelope, and the envelope pushed back.” The film is a testament to that final success, a wonder of storytelling and special effects wizardry that will leave you feeling transported, elated, and in love with movies all over again. It’s been a long time coming, but the next great movie masterpiece has finally arrived. Click on the source link for the complete review.
Den of Geek: 3 out of 5 Stars
By Michael Leader | Excerpt: denofgeek.com
December 11, 2009 - Okay, breathe. Avatar is easily one of the most anticipated films of the year - and rightly so. It is a technological marvel, and a return to sci-fi filmmaking from a director that many of the writers, editors and readers of this site consider to be some sort of Cinematic Father Figure - a peddler of pure, imaginative wonderstuff.
With James Cameron involved, there is a hope that this will offer something more nourishing, something different from the blockbuster geek fare that we have seen of late. And that's certainly true. So with my spoiler hat firmly on, we're going to wrestle with this huge, beautiful, radiant beast called Avatar.
What is surprising is how Cameron is grappling with many of the iconic aspects of his previous films, namely Aliens. Within the opening hour of Avatar, you've already been presented with gruff marines, dropships, mining colonies, slimy men in suits, hypersleep pods, big metallic walkers, bio labs and an amoral, buck-chasing corporation called The Company. However, whereas Aliens was a much more straightforward sci-fi action flick in scope, Avatar is self-consciously ambitious, aiming for the giddy heights of epic fiction.
It is testament to the grace of the Avatar's effects that such small moments work. Cameron, aided by VFX teams from WETA and ILM (and a handy couple hundred million dollars), has created a film-world that is seamless and immersive. While maybe not exactly a paradigm shift, it is a startling culmination and refinement of the VFX innovations that have been played with over the last decade by directors like Peter Jackson and Robert Zemeckis.
Avatar has the edge over the likes of Lord of the Rings and Beowulf, not simply due to its over-inflated budget, but because of the inspired amount of design work that has gone into fleshing out Pandora's flora, fauna and geology. As Sully explores the depths of the jungle, each frame bursts with creative energy that is made all the more vivid by the texture and depth presented by the 3D visuals. Individual animals, plants and locations prove to be immediately striking, yet memorable - from vibrant, ethereal flying lizards to floating mountains and tree barks that, in the night, light up to the touch.
It is a world for the audience - like Sully - to get lost in, a cinematic experience that simply cannot be matched by home entertainment systems. The natives are depicted as a hodge-podge of Native American and African tribespeople, and the evocation of the exploitation of such indigenous populations by imperial powers throughout history is blunt and unsubtle.
The conflict between the humans and the Na'Vi is shot through with nods to Vietnam and - to lay it on extra thick - Iraq, as it is revealed that the hub of their society happens to be on top of a rich source of 'Unobtanium', a mysterious substance that is of great value to The Company. Throughout, Avatar poses itself as having Something To Say, and does so with the heavy-handedness of a drunk with a megaphone. There's a chance that such an approach could work, but the thematics of its narrative are outmoded and a little backward.
Avatar makes a handful of awkward decisions that will make Post-Colonial Theory-savvy intellectuals sigh with the hollow joy of smug elitism. Strike one: Cameron weighs too heavily on exoticism, with the mystical properties of the Na'Vi's (naturally pantheistic) religion being overstated at every turn (to the point of a literal deus ex machina late on in the film, and some slightly cringe-worthy religious ritual sequences).
Strike two: the film ties together its love of Na'Vi society with Sully's romance with princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a narrative trick that is hackneyed and predictable, not to mention a little misogynistic in its implications. Strike three, the worst of the bunch: the Na'Vi just aren't as interesting as the humans. For the most part, they are stock characters - 'noble savages' that are quick to anger, alien in their values and emotionally distant.
While the motion capture technology works well to recreate the minutiae of both Saldana and Worthington's performances, they are swept aside by their non-CG companions. Ribisi, Lang and Weaver - and to a certain extent Michelle Rodriguez, as kick-ass chopper pilot Trudy Chacon - are all remarkable. And while they all act superbly, their characters are given nuance and shape by ideas from the scripting stage, with minor touches that are economical in their eloquence.
Colonel Quaritch is a scarred, mean bastard who gets all the pumped up 'hoo-ah!' lines of the sort that are still quoted by Aliens fans, but his dedication and drive is shown by his mad propensity for rushing out into the Pandoran atmosphere without an oxygen mask, holding his breath in a display of true grit. I overheard a chap yesterday say 'the script is the cheapest part of a film', so it is a shame that Avatar doesn't boast a narrative sophistication to match its visual splendour.
That said, its story is there, and does a good job at propelling the film forward, setting up binaries of good/evil, and even planting seeds of emotional attachment if one is so inclined (even if the most potent of these, Jake's disabled narrative, is hardly explored). It's only because it runs the risk of trying to do too much that it inevitably feels lop-sided or confused in its intentions - is it escapism, is it didactic, is it romantic, "feel-good" or cautionary? I suppose most people won't be bothered, and they have every right to be blown away by Avatar.
It's an event movie worthy of the description. It is packed with the kind of 'wow' moments that blockbusters seldom indulge in any more (coming off a little like Jurassic Park in the process), and the closing hour is defined by a stunning action sequence that is impressive in scale and deft in its direction. It is every bit the technical achievement that Cameron promised it would be. However, there is no dodging its weak, underwhelming story. Click on the source link for the complete review.
Empire Rates Avatar 5 out of 5 Stars
By Chris Hewitt | Excerpt: empireonline.com
December 10, 2009 - Avatar is unequivocally, completely, 100% the film that has been percolating in James Cameron’s head for the last fourteen years.
It is not, in all probability, the film that you had in yours when you first heard that the man who directed Aliens and The Terminator was returning to sci-fi with a movie so ambitious that he had to build the technology to make it happen.
If you can let go of your version and embrace Cameron’s – if you’re not, in other words, one of those splenetic internet fanboy types who’ve apparently made their minds up about Avatar before seeing it – then Avatar is a hugely rewarding experience: rich, soulful and exciting in the way that only comes from seeing a master artist at work.
Let’s address the Big Question first: to use the key phrase so often used in connection with the movie, is it a game-changer? Yes, and no would be the cop-out answer, but it’s also the truth. Avatar employs technology necessary to render its largely computer-generated, 3D world that will give directors, including but not limited to Cameron, one heck of a sandbox to play in over the next few years. That’s how the game has changed off screen.
On it, it may not be a game-changer, but no director to date has built a world of this scale, ambition and complexity before, and Avatar – much as the arrival of Raymond van Barneveld forced Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor to up his game – will have rival directors scrambling to keep up with Cameron. Avatar is an astonishing feast for the eyes and ears, with shots and sequences that boggle the mind, from the epic – a floating mountain range in the sky, waterfalls cascading into nothingness – to the tiny details, such as a paraplegic sinking his new, blue and fully operational toes into the sand. The level of detail here is simply amazing.
And Cameron plunges you straight in, not even giving you time to don water wings. In a dizzyingly fast, almost impressionistic opening ten minutes, we’re introduced, in no short order, to everything you need to know for the next 150: about Pandora’s climate and largely deadly population, about Jake Sully’s situation, about the Avatar programme and the ruthless plans of the human invaders (led by Stephen Lang’s Col.
Quaritch and Giovanni Ribisi’s Selfridge, a clear nod to Aliens’ Carter Burke, one of several touches reminiscent of Cameron’s earlier masterpiece). And then we’re off and running, literally, into an action sequence where Jake-Avatar barely survives encounters with unfriendly local wildlife that would make Ray Mears cream his shorts.
And it’s here where Cameron begins the detour from the all-out actionfest that many might have expected, choosing instead to slow things down over a three-month time period in which Jake – hair and beard markedly growing in the live-action sequences – immerses himself in the Na’vi culture, and gradually finds himself losing his heart to their ways and practices, and, in particular, Zoe Saldana’s fierce warrioress, Neytiri.
The lack of a ticking clock plot device here may deprive Avatar of momentum or drive through its middle-section, but it’s also part of Cameron’s agenda. After all, he’s also the guy who directed Titanic, and Avatar isn’t just about stupendous action, but a love story. We need hardly be surprised by this – every Cameron film, even True Lies, has a love story at its core – but the surprise here is how effective Avatar’s central coupling is, the emotion between Jake and Neytiri earthed by Weta’s astonishing digital effects.
You can safely stow away all that spurious crap about videogame-style effects, or blue Jar Jars: this is truly next-level stuff, which doesn't smother Worthington and Saldana under a pile of pixels, but rather teases out and enhances the emotion in their excellent performances.
The Na’vi, each of whom has clearly distinct features (no small feat for a clan of some several hundred creatures) may not always seem photo-real, but they do seem – and this is crucial – alive and extremely expressive, helped by the fact that the dead-eye problem, which has plagued mo-cap movies since their inception, has been well and truly solved. Click on the source link for the complete review.
